Data use caution 1
Andy Rotherham pines for some use of data to predict and head off students who would otherwise drop out. For now I'll let others critique the at-risk label/concept, which has been around since the 1980s and before. For now, I'll note that there are interesting sensitivity/specificity problems with predicting who will drop out or who might […]
STEM, dumping-ground majors, and “pipeline” metaphors
This morning's blog entry by FSU physicist Paul Cottle illustrates the growth of undergraduate professional majors at the expense of science… and liberal arts. The reason why there aren't large numbers of physics majors at USF isn't the horde in philosophy but the hordes in business or starting out as pre-meds. I'm not sure what […]
The “vote the kid out of class” teacher is at it again
Remember Wendy Portillo, the Palm Beach County teacher who had a classroom "vote" to kick a student with autism out of her kindergarten class in 2008? Looks like she's in the middle of another news story on teachers failing to meet the needs of students with disabilities, this time one of a small handful of staff […]
Hoping that the Digital Learning Council is not Strong American Schools, digital version
Apparently there is now something called a Digital Learning Council, which a press release announced in August and apparently has Bob Wise and Jeb Bush on board as co-honchos. I would point to the website of the new DLC, but there isn't a website I can find (though there is a Twitter feed). I will […]
Mistakes are public: The foot-high erratum
In the 1920s, as the Lincoln Memorial was constructed, one of the people carving part of Lincoln's second inaugural address into the northern interior wall made a mistake, turning FUTURE into EUTURE. As the National Park Service explains, the extra line on the letter was filled in, but it's still visible, as I saw when […]